Looking Forward to Completion
by haveitoldyouiloveyou
Summary: His life ended when she was lost. Nearly three years later, his heart is started again. But for what?
1. Chapter 1

Prelude *  
He is in a room. It is small and dark. Not too small, but just small enough. Small enough that he knows they won't find him... or her for that matter. His arm is around her bare waist and he smiles tenderly at the calm on her face. Shivering at the slight cold, he pulls the blanket up around his shoulders and pulls her closer. He tugs her shirt down from where it has ridden up to above her belly button. She must be cold, too. His eyes close softly and warily, knowing that she must leave tomorrow and that when she does, his world will stop. But she will be back soon after that and they will be together again. As he drifts out of conciousness, he feels a small emotion of despair, just at the back of his mind, telling him something is about to happen... and he's not going to like it.

The next morning he stands by the door of their inconspicuos van. She has the window rolled down and is leaning out to kiss him softly. He regrets ever agreeing to let her go on her own, but, sadly, she is right. She has been cooped up for a while, and the small garden they have needs to be tended, not something she enjoys very much. And so, it is with a heavy heart and a sense of forboding that he lets her leave. Standing in the cold, gray, dawn he waits until he can no longer see the vehicle that carries her.

He steps outside once again. It is night. The sky is pitch black. Just like his heart. He stares at the road. The road he knows she will come from, if she was coming back at all, that is. It has been seven months. He has counted each dark day, every unnoticed hour, every minute that meaned nothing to him.... and she is still not back. And he knows it is time to go back. He knows that he has waited long enough. That she will not come back. And yet, he is tempted. Oh so tempted, to stay. One more day,  
he reasons with himself. But he knows he cannot. And so, with tears choking him, he knows he has waited too long. So he packs quickly and with tears running down his face, he closes the door to their home. The place where he and his love had slept and eaten and loved each other, and smiled, and survived, and been happy. And he is lost.

Almost two weeks later, he has made it to the caves again. But he is weak, and dillusional from the lack of water and food. His eyes fill with tears. There is not even one hundred feet left to go and he will die here. But maybe, maybe maybe maybe, he will be with her. His eyes fill with tears, his mind starts to go dark, and before he knows it, he is falling into the blackness. But before he does, he conjurs a memory of the two of them. Lying together, just looking into her eyes, and a smile graces his face.

They are worried about him. It has been eleven days and he has still not woken. He doesn't want to wake up. The doctor says. He is at peace in his mind. But they don't want to believe him. He has been captured by the Souls for almost two years now. How could he be at peace?

Three days later, agrivated at their pleas (and slightly worried himself) the doctor caves and gives the boy Awake.

He is in a field. His mind is happy. She is there and there is someone there with her, too. But, he can never get a good look at the other person. He only knows it is small. Not yet ten. His eyes fill with tears. I waited for you, he says. She smiles and says she knows. He wonders why she did not come back. She wonders that, too. Suddenly,  
he is pulled out of this world of nothingness. This world with her. His mind is thrown out and he crys out.

They are startled to hear him yell. But his eyes open and he shoots into a sitting position. No! He yells. He is met with the stares of those he knows. He scans their faces but sees no one that means anything to him. Maybe once they were loved by him, but she is gone and so is his reason. They are stirred into action by his open eyes and sitting up. He is surrounded by those who care about him. There are tears. But only one person is not crying from happiness. Him. He pulls away. What happens, he demands. They tell him they found him, unconcious, about seventy-five feet from the entrance. And it flows back and he can feel the bile in his throat. Grimacing,  
he grabs the bedpan and empties his already empty stomach into the cold metal basin. They are shocked. Why, they wonder. Why is he so hurt by being here? Suddenly he is stricken. A girl, he says quickly. Did a girl come? Was there a girl with me? They look around at each other, confused. No, they say. Tears form again and he is angry at them. He is weak. So much crying has been done in these past couple of months. Oh, god, he whispers. And breaks down. His shoulders shake. His vision blurs and they are stunned. Why is he so upset? But they will not know. Not for many months. They will only watch as he grows colder and more unwilling. As his will to live seems to be less and less. They will only watch as he stops smiling. They will watch him grow quiet, then angry. At whom, they do not know. But, it seems to them he is angry at himself. Angry for being so weak.

The months pass and they do only watch. Two years after he has been found and he has grown cold and unfeeling. Not like the person they used to know. None of them have forgotten that day. The day he came back. The day he changed. When a group of humans comes to the caves they hurry him to the game room. Hoping, hoping, hoping, he will pull himself out of the darkness for just this one day. He goes unwillingly, but he still goes. There is a small circle of people surrounding the visitors and he hears a laugh and freezes. Unwilling to believe he is hearing right. There is something wrong with him, he reasons. But inside, he knows that is not the truth. When someone yells for the circle to clear, he can see her. See her standing there with a small child on her hip. And he is frozen. Because the child has his eyes. The child has his hair. But, the child has her nose. It is then that he realizes why she left. That he realizes that she had never been taken. She only wanted to protect him. Stunned he breathes her name and although it is quiet, she somehow hears it.

"Laura." 


	2. A little piece of blue eyed heaven

Chapter One: A little piece of blue eyed heaven.  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Jamie's POV *  
"Jamie." She replied easily. My heart stuttered when I heard her voice. I could feel the confusion of those around at me but didn't give a crap right now. I was busy. The small child tilted her head at me and I felt myself become captivated. Laura followed my gaze and seemed slightly abashed when she spoke.

"This is-"

"Hope. Yeah, I know." I said quietly. I was still taking her in. The baby was about two. She had my black hair but what was really surprising was her eyes. They were the exact shade of mine. They looked like ice with buried chunks of gold scattered throughout. They were never-ending. Intellegent.

"I see you two know each other." Uncle Jeb's gruff, familiar voice came from behind me.

"Yes." I said.

"And how do you know my god daughter exactly? The first time you two met you were only a year and seven months old.  
Much too young to be able to remember the existance of one another let alone each others names." Jeb said in confusion and suspicion. Shocked I turned to him.

"She's your god daughter!?" I sputtered.

"Yes." It was Laura that answered, not Jeb. "Why?"

"He's my uncle." I said. She too looked thrown off.

"How exactly do you two know each other?" Wanda's soothing voice asked. I prepared to make up some excuse but it turned out that I didn't have too. Laura answered instead.

"It's a rather long story and I would like to talk to Jamie privately for a while." She said, and promptly grabbed me by the hand and led me out of the room. "Your room." She said shortly. I nodded and led her to where I slept, alone. She sat down on the mattress and stared at me.

"Do you hate me?" She asked quietly.

"No."

"How can you not? I left you. I left you and knew I wasn't coming back. I left you on purpose." These words stung, but confirmed what I already knew.

"I know." I said quietly. My voice was a little hoarse from not being used very much. Her eyes brightened in surprise.

"You knew I was pregnant?" She said.

"No. I thought you would be back. I waited. Counting the seconds that passed. The minutes that became nothing after I realized you should have been back and weren't. I waited for seven months. Foolish, yes. But at the same time, I knew I would be happy if you came back, human or not. I would at least know what had happened to you. I was extremely tempted to keep waiting but knew I was being ridiculous after a while. You weren't coming back. So I packed up and came back here. I'd told you about it, remember? That's how you knew how to get here." I said. She nodded.

"Imagine my surprise when I found out my godfather was here." She murmured. "And then you walked in. Jamie, let me assure you that leaving you was the hardest decision I had ever had to make. I cried as I drove away. I would have come back had I not known that we would have been found. I was found so many times, always managing to narrowly escape.  
Why I was able to escape I don't know. Maybe they went easy on me because I had a baby with me. Maybe God knew I needed to get here and see you again. Maybe they were tired that day. I just know that I thought about you every day. I had to endure looking at Hope everyday and seeing you in her eyes and her face. Seeing how much she was like you. Stubborn to the point of exhaustion but the sweetest and most kind person you would ever meet. Know please that I only left to keep you safe. A baby is so hard to care for. People would have gotten suspicious. I'm so sorry." She was crying by the time she had finished and so was I. For the first time though, I was not crying because I was alone. I was not crying because I was in pain. I was crying because I was happy.

"I forgive you." I said, smiling at her. She threw herself into my arms and I wrapped my arms tight around her and buried my face in her neck. It had been too long. Still smiling and wiping away my tears I pulled away and looked at Hope. Her head was tilted slightly and she looked confused.

"Why you cry?" She said in a sweet, adorable tone. I smiled.

"Do you know who I am Hope?"

"You daddy." She said simply. I blinked in surprise and crouched down in front of where she sat on my mattress.

"And how exactly do you know that?" I asked.

"Momma show me." She beamed at me and took a picture out of one of her jeans pockets and held it up to me. I took it carefully and saw, to my surprise, the only picture that contained Laura and I. We had found a camera with only one picture left. One of those cameras that spit the photo out about five seconds after you took it. I smiled even more as I stared at it and then handed it back to Hope.

"That's right. I am your daddy." More tears. It was ridiculous how much I was crying, but I was amazed that, at seventeen,  
I had made something so adorable and full of life. So happy and innocent. Now I was nineteen. She stood up clumsily, off balance because of the squishy mattress and toddled to me. I caught her as she tripped and stood up hugging her to me. Laura stood watching us with a wide grin on her face. I chuckled and held out an arm to her as well. She hugged us both and I was elated. I had lost Laura for more than two years but gained a family. I was a dad. I was amazed. I had never understood how much someone could want a child but, standing here, the joy of having something that you had, somehow, created, jolted me into an existance that I knew would take forever to understand. But I would try to understand.

"Now." Laura said, interupting my internal musings. "How do we explain this to everyone else?"

Oh, crap.  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Hope you liked that chapter! The next couple of chapters will, for the most part, be setting the stage for the plot. Review please! Luvs :) 


	3. Miracle in my arms

Chapter Two: Miracle in my arms.

Jamie's POV *  
My brain was soft of kind of freaking out. What the heck would we tell them? What would I say to explain the fact that all of a sudden, I had a two year old little girl, gosh I loved that, and a girlfriend? Which reminded me...

"Laura?" I asked hesitantly. As we were walking towards the eating area where everyone was currently having dinner, I held Hope's hand in my right hand and Laura's hand in my left but, still, I wanted to be sure.

"Yeah." She said, almost absentmindedly.

"Are we.... picking up where we left off?" I asked quietly. Hope hummed a little song while dragging a small doll that had once been Laura's mother's. She didn't notice the slight hesitation in my actions or my tense voice, thankfully.

"Um... if you want to." She said, her voice no longer absentminded. She was very aware of me and my question. I was about to say 'but do you want to?' when I realized the only thing she could do was say 'no.' So, I went with my usual outlandish blurting.

"I want to." I said softly, squeezing her hand gently. She smiled at me.

"Me, too." She said easily and my heart sang. Cheesy, I know, but it did. Seriously. I could hear it spouting off 'Phantom of the Opera'. Still couldn't get that dang song out of my head. Very annoying.

"Here we are." Laura said and my mind snapped to the present. Nervously, I picked Hope up, holding her to my right side, and she wrapped her arms around my neck,  
chattering away about a bird she had seen that had the same color feathers as her hair. Apparently, she had liked it quite alot.

My throat closed up as I pushed open the makeshift doors and every eye turned to us, my brain still frantically shifting through everything I could possibly say. Turns out, I didn't need to say anything. Hope did it all for me.

"An' den, Daddy! Arw you wisenin'?" She was barely two and a half and yet was talking like a pro. Before this, I had been amazed. Now, I was a little wary.

"Yes baby, I'm listening." I said patiently, and nearly every jaw dropped. I nodded toward the line for food and told Laura I'd be waiting over at the table where Jeb, Jared,  
Wanda, Ian, Melonie, and Kyle were sitting. She handed me a small bag that I hadn't noticed before and said that Hope's food was in there. I nodded and made my way through the crowds with a chattering Hope. Exasperated and trying to carry both my two year old and her bag of food, what did Laura have in here anyway? Did the kid eat bricks?, I sat down on one side of the long table next to Ian, who was sitting next to Kyle. They were all staring at me, too.

"Food?" Hope said, hopefully.

"Mmmhmm.... as soon as Daddy can get the bag open. Can you sit here for a minute?" I asked, setting her on the table in front of me and turning to the bag, not really expecting an answer. She nodded eagerly anyway. I poked through the contents in confusion and then grabbed a container of what looked like cookies but said they were made of pure vegetable. That should be good.

I offered them to Hope and she beamed at me. Apparently, she liked them. The others were still staring at me as Laura came back with a tray of food and tilted her head at me. I scooted over, understanding her easily. When we had been hiding, we had created a sort of sign language that we had fallen into using at what was 'home' back then. She sat down and I stuck Hope between us, watching her warily.

"So...." Wanda said slowly. "Are you guys going to tell us what's going on?"

"Yeah, like why the heck that little girl called you 'Daddy' Jamie?" Jeb growled at me. He wasn't very happy with me I suppose.

"Because I am her dad." I said. Kyle was clearly confused.

"Wait but she's like almost three and that means Laura would have gotten pregnant with her while you were captured by the souls. That doesn't make sense unless, are you a soul?" He asked Laura.

"No, she's not. And I was never captured by the souls. Laura found me the winter I disappeared and offered me a home, after punching me square in the face, I might add, but only because she thought I was a soul. Things..... kind of went from there." I finished.

"But, you said you were captured by souls." Melanie said.

"No, I let you assume I had been captured by souls." I said, not really liking where this was going.

"Wait, so if you had a girlfriend and a daughter, why the heck were you so depressed? This is the most I've heard you say in two years." Ian said, sounding frustrated. "We were worried about you, kid. Thought you were goin' downhill. I thought about having someone follow you and not letting you near sharp objects for a while there."

"That's my fault." Laura said in a small voice. All eyes turned to her. "When I found out I was pregnant, I knew there was no way we could raise a baby, who would cry loudly and need lots more food than we did, and remain uncaught. We had been lucky so far about being found but I knew we wouldn't be for much longer. We'd been into town too much. So, instead of risking three lives, I left and only risked two. Hope and I were nearly found more times than I can count. But, we were very lucky. As I told Jamie, I don't know if maybe they went easy because I had a baby or they were tired, or what. But, whatever the circumstances were, we were never caught. I managed to get away." She finished.

"You always were a fast runner." I mused. "Remember that one time when those souls almost caught us in the woods." I said, nearly choking over laughter. We had gotten.... distracted..... and not heard them coming. She giggled.

"Yes. Boy that was horrible. Then of course you had to go and trip while we were running down that hill because....." And her voice trailed off because she was laughing so hard. My pants had tripped me.

"Yeah. That was fun." I chuckled. Everyone stared at us.

"I don't even want to know." Ian said in disgust. Jeb's nose was crinkled and he shuddered. Jared and Melanie merely grinned at each other. Wanda, it seemed, found nothing unusual about this statement and was confused over everyone else's actions.

"What?" She said. "I don't get it!"

Melanie leaned towards her and whispered something. I couldn't hear what she was saying, making me suspicious. My face was already red though, so maybe I didn't want to know.

"Alright, alright. Time to turn in, I think." I said, noticing for the first time that Hope was about to pass out. She must be exhausted, meeting me for the first time and being in a new place and seeing so many people. Too much excitement for a two year old. "Night guys." I threw towards the group. Laura grabbed the tray and dumped it where everyone else's was and followed me. Hope's cheeks were flushed and her head was snuggled into my neck, her hands gripping my shirt and her mouth forming a small o. A miracle in my arms. Laura smiled at me and grabbed my free hand and together, we made our exit. *  
No real plot, I know. Remember, not all books/stories/ramblings/whatever start with major action. Characters need introduction, storylines need to be set, etc. What I've learned is that the very best books start the plots in about the fifth chapter or so. Except for James Patterson's, where in Max, someone gets shot at in the first chapter.  
But, he is a famous, rich, well-written author and I am not. So, no one shall be shot at until later chapters. :) Luvs! (: 


	4. Out of It

First off, thanks to the reviewers that have so far reviewed. I'm always excited to see if there are new reviews. Makes me smile Second, Owl City's Vanilla Twilight has been a constant inspiration so…. Thank you to those peoples as well. Enough mushy stuff. Here's chapter four. (btw: these chapters may look a bit different because I just go Microsoft Word so I can do more, cooler stuff. So excited!)(btw again: unless I say differently, all future chapters will be in Jamie's POV, so no one be confused if I start talking in his POV and it doesn't say; Jamie's POV….. that gets a little annoying to have to keep doing that over and over again.) Okay, I'm done talking, read away, my friends.

**Out of It**

For the past three weeks, life in the caves has been…. Interesting…. I suppose you could say. There hadn't been a baby here since Freedom was small, that was about eight years ago, and everyone constantly wanted to hold, or feed, or babysit Hope. I didn't mind of course, but sometimes, I think Hope did. She absolutely adored Doc though. No one quite knew why, especially considering all the souls he….. uh…. Yeah. Well, regardless of any vibes she might have gotten from his, she still adored Doc, even going as far as to call him "Unca Doc". Doc didn't mind though. He loved her just as much, and was a frequent babysitter.

Laura was a little over whelmed at the thought of so many humans, but everyone soon wanted to make friends with her and she wanted to be friends with everyone. Games were interesting because Laura had played soccer before the invasion and played really well. She could almost beat Ian _and_ Kyle. However, even three weeks later, no one has gotten used to the fact that I'm a father. Thanks guys. I admit, I did find it odd the first few days to be called 'daddy' but now, I respond automatically. Melanie thinks its funny and got Freedom to yell it one day in the eating area. When I automatically popped up from behind our makeshift serving counter, everyone dissolved into absolute hysterics. I didn't think it was _that _funny. Life was perfect, that is….. until we started to run low on supplies.

"I want you, Laura, and Hope to come with us this time Jamie." Jeb's voice said. He had called a meeting of all the usual raiders. This included me, Wanda, Mel, Jared, Ian, Kyle, and Jeb, because he's the boss. Laura wanted to come, too and see how everything worked out in terms of "government". I simply told her that Jeb, as the person with the gun, was the leader and we all did as he told us to, she laughed and said that she wanted to see the meeting, she already knew how the chain of command went. So, she, and Hope of course, tagged along with me. And this was what I got.

"No." I said immediately. "No way." I didn't care if Jeb ran the place, this was _my_ family. Not his.

"My house Jamie, my rules." He said, sounding smug.

"My family, my two year old daughter." I snarled at him.

"Jamie." Laura said. Oh jeez. "I think this might be the best time to tell them."

"Oh heavens, what are you pregnant or something!" Wanda exclaimed. I glanced at Laura worriedly but she only shook her head and said she would be right back. Handing Laura to me, she raced off. Now I knew what was happening.

"Oh god." I groaned.

"What!" Jeb barked. "What's she doing?"

"You'll see in a minute." I mumbled. I knew now that I had no say in whether or not Laura would be going with us. She would be, and Hope, too. About three minutes later, Laura arrived and told Jeb to shine a flashlight in her eyes. Bewildered he did, and just about dropped the light. Just as Wanda's eyes did, Laura's now reflected light.

"How the h-"

"Language." I barked.

"Heck. How the heck did you do that." Kyle sputtered.

"Reflective contact lenses." Laura said promptly. "Before the souls invaded, no offense Wanda, I wanted to go into something to do with eyes. I studied everything I could get my hands on. Thinking it would someday be pretty cool to have eyes that shined lights back at people, I created reflective contact lenses, hundreds of them. After the invasion I realized that doing that had been the absolute best thing I had ever done in my life." Everyone was speechless.

"She's going Jamie." Mel said firmly. I sighed and nodded.

"Yeah, I know. I suppose we do need some stuff that would be hard to get without a kid. What's our story then, might as well get that out of the way now." I grumbled. Immediately, Wanda spoke up.

"I think we need to take Freedom with us." She said. We all stared at her. "Think about it guys! Those kids have been wearing scraps for their whole lives! We could send Jamie, Laura, and Hope into a kids store to buy some stuff for Hope and maybe even some toys or learning materials. They can say they wanted to keep Hope human until she was older and Laura wants to home school her. Freedom will come with me and Ian and we'll say he's our nephew. He's old enough to put the contact lenses in so he'll be a soul with us. We'll say we're shopping for new clothes for him and his brother for the school year. It's almost September right? So, we should have absolutely no problem with that. Mel can pose as a schoolteacher for little children and get learning stuff if the thing with Laura doesn't work out and Kyle can shop for guys clothes. He, Jared, and Ian are all the same size, roughly. Then, we'll stop in another town and shop for clothes for everyone else. Lily, Sharon, and Amy are all Mel's size. Jamie and Wes are the same size. Most everyone here is the same size or can make do with a size bigger or smaller."

We all stared at Wanda. She was taking charge and with that agreeable face of hers, I knew everyone would say okay and be done with it. And that's exactly what happened.

"We'll have to ask Freedom and his mother if he can go and wants to go first." Jeb said, "but I think that's a great idea Wanda. Knew you would solve some big problem for us one day." With a laugh, everyone agreed and the small crowd slowly got smaller.

"So." Laura said.

"Yeah." I sighed.

"Don't worry Jamie. It'll be fine." She said soothingly. I nodded.

"Well, at least it will be something that will get us out of this cave." I said dryly. She chuckled and took my hand to pull me and Hope to our room. We had a big day ahead of us and needed our sleep if we were to be rested up tomorrow.

Short? Possibly. It is some 1,190 words long but I do promise that the next chapter will be unbelievably long. So don't worry. Hasta luego!


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